Ep. 228: A World Without Busyness

00:00:00.000 | So that's what we lose in a normal schedule.

00:00:02.480 | A lot less deep work, a lot longer working hours,

00:00:05.380 | and just a lot more grinding organizational skill required

00:00:08.960 | even to just sort of get through the day, which is draining.

00:00:12.120 | And what do we gain from that?

00:00:13.780 | Less visible productivity,

00:00:16.440 | in the sense of producing things that the world notices

00:00:19.400 | and would assess as being valuable.

00:00:28.400 | I'm Kyle Newport, and this is Deep Questions, episode 228.

00:00:33.400 | This is the show where I answer questions from my audience

00:00:44.080 | and give advice about the challenge of cultivating

00:00:48.240 | a deep life in a world increasingly beset by distractions.

00:00:53.240 | Now I'm here as always in my deep work HQ.

00:00:57.520 | I'm joined by my producer, Jesse.

00:01:00.800 | Jesse, I just did the math.

00:01:02.640 | This episode's coming out, what, the day after Christmas?

00:01:06.000 | - Yeah.

00:01:06.840 | - It's our holiday episode.

00:01:07.680 | - Holiday episode.

00:01:08.860 | - We should have brought in Christmas lights.

00:01:11.000 | I had that idea, by the way.

00:01:12.480 | I was gonna decorate the HQ, and then I didn't.

00:01:16.240 | But it was my idea.

00:01:17.060 | I was gonna bring in some lights and do whatever,

00:01:20.200 | and then life happened.

00:01:21.820 | - The last time we had props, we brought the skeleton.

00:01:24.520 | - Yeah, so Halloween got a skeleton.

00:01:27.320 | We should have done this in Santa hats.

00:01:28.760 | I apologize, this is me dropping the ball.

00:01:30.960 | I honestly didn't really, I've lost track of time.

00:01:33.600 | We're sort of just barreling through December.

00:01:35.600 | My family, there's a lot going on.

00:01:37.480 | I'm dealing with each thing as we get there.

00:01:39.400 | So it didn't really occur to me,

00:01:40.400 | we're recording this a week in advance more or less,

00:01:42.520 | that like, oh, this is actually the holiday episode.

00:01:45.520 | You know, I did a survey.

00:01:47.060 | You might be surprised by the answer.

00:01:48.120 | I surveyed our listeners to find out what holidays

00:01:51.560 | do they celebrate during this period?

00:01:54.540 | Number one response, Festivus.

00:01:57.200 | - Really?

00:01:58.920 | - No.

00:01:59.740 | (laughing)

00:02:00.580 | Made that up.

00:02:01.420 | I just wanted to air grievances later in the episode.

00:02:07.120 | I did not, I did not, I did not interview them on that.

00:02:09.680 | All right, we've got a good, simple show today

00:02:12.880 | in honor of the holidays.

00:02:14.200 | One deep dive, which you will see is tangentially

00:02:17.640 | connected to the current season.

00:02:20.840 | Five questions, carefully selected,

00:02:23.660 | a mix of questions about the struggle

00:02:26.480 | to find more depth in your work

00:02:27.900 | and questions about finding more depth

00:02:29.720 | in your life outside of work.

00:02:30.560 | We got a good mix, followed by our favorite final segment,

00:02:34.320 | three interesting things.

00:02:35.360 | I have three interesting things sent to me

00:02:38.760 | from around the internet in recent weeks,

00:02:41.160 | all about the struggle to live deeply.

00:02:45.080 | All right, that is the show.

00:02:46.720 | I want to mention a brief experiment going on

00:02:49.800 | over at the YouTube channel,

00:02:52.040 | youtube.com/CalNewportMedia.

00:02:55.260 | In addition to the videos of this podcast,

00:02:59.320 | I launched an experimental video with friend of the show,

00:03:03.480 | an old friend of mine, comedian, Jamie Kilstein.

00:03:06.520 | We did a pilot episode of a show we're calling

00:03:10.720 | Jamie and Cal Explain the Internet.

00:03:12.380 | The short premise is, I don't use social media,

00:03:15.180 | so I know very little about what's happening on the internet.

00:03:17.800 | Jamie is, as you've heard from his interviews on this show,

00:03:21.640 | is working really hard to be disconnected from social media,

00:03:24.240 | so he also doesn't really know what's going on right now

00:03:26.880 | in the internet.

00:03:27.760 | So we are the two worst people in the world

00:03:29.800 | to ask to explain contemporary internet trends,

00:03:33.560 | and that is exactly what we do.

00:03:35.420 | So we take five trending ideas, memes, tweets,

00:03:40.000 | TikToks, et cetera, from the week in the internet,

00:03:42.020 | and we struggle to explain them.

00:03:44.280 | What's the idea behind the show?

00:03:45.360 | Well, A, I just thought that'd be funny,

00:03:47.920 | me trying to explain TikTok,

00:03:49.600 | but there's an underlying actual motivation here,

00:03:52.560 | which is when you are immersed in internet culture,

00:03:56.980 | it seems totalizing.

00:04:00.200 | Like, this is the world,

00:04:02.400 | this is all that matters in the world,

00:04:04.200 | everyone in the world is equally as invested

00:04:06.400 | in what's going on in this internet world,

00:04:09.000 | and that can be a problem,

00:04:10.040 | because often what's happening in internet culture

00:04:11.560 | can be distressing, it can be outraging,

00:04:13.400 | it can be depressing,

00:04:15.160 | it can be nerve-wracking or anxiety-producing.

00:04:17.500 | And so I think there's some benefit, perhaps,

00:04:20.960 | to see a show that others internet culture.

00:04:23.680 | So you have people from the outside

00:04:25.760 | struggling to understand it, and yeah, it's funny,

00:04:27.720 | but it also, I hope, also sends the message of,

00:04:30.960 | look, a lot of this stuff is kinda arbitrary.

00:04:32.780 | This is not real life,

00:04:34.520 | this is not everything that's happening in the world.

00:04:36.720 | It only feels that way if you're in it.

00:04:38.180 | Just look at these two idiots

00:04:39.200 | who don't know anything about it,

00:04:40.640 | see how mysterious this is to their eyes,

00:04:42.480 | that's what this looks like to most of the world.

00:04:43.880 | So hopefully there'll be some relief to be gained

00:04:47.120 | from those who feel too engaged in internet culture.

00:04:49.300 | So that's a Jamie, or Cal and Jamie explain the internet.

00:04:52.720 | It's an experiment.

00:04:53.560 | We might try a few episodes,

00:04:55.000 | see if we like it, see if you like it,

00:04:56.440 | but there is at least one up there

00:04:57.560 | if you wanna check it out.

00:04:58.840 | All right, and with that, I think we're ready to jump in.

00:05:04.520 | I wanna start with a deep dive.

00:05:07.120 | I'm gonna call this a world without busyness.

00:05:12.920 | It is inspired by the holiday break

00:05:16.940 | that especially in the American context,

00:05:19.160 | most workers get the week between Christmas and New Year's.

00:05:23.600 | So we have the holiday break just started

00:05:25.340 | when you're listening to this podcast.

00:05:26.640 | I wanna talk about the week before.

00:05:29.220 | The week before the holiday break.

00:05:30.560 | That is the week that I'm in right now as I record this.

00:05:35.320 | For me, as for a lot of people,

00:05:38.040 | the week before this break is a really nice week of work.

00:05:43.800 | And the reason is is because it's 40% less busy

00:05:48.800 | than a typical work week

00:05:51.040 | as people are getting ready for the holidays,

00:05:53.360 | people aren't starting new initiatives,

00:05:55.760 | people aren't scheduling as many meetings.

00:05:58.760 | This is particularly true in the academic context

00:06:01.060 | where I work, the semester is over

00:06:04.200 | and people will wait till the new year

00:06:05.380 | to really get things ramped up.

00:06:06.400 | So it's like an easier week.

00:06:07.740 | You're still working,

00:06:08.800 | but the work doesn't seem as onerous.

00:06:12.460 | So what I have here, I'm gonna switch to the tablet.

00:06:14.900 | So for those who are watching this on YouTube,

00:06:17.200 | you're gonna see me drawing on the screen here.

00:06:19.940 | I have a very crudely drawn calendar.

00:06:22.760 | Those who are listening,

00:06:24.500 | you can imagine this being expertly drafted

00:06:27.000 | with beautiful penmanship and straight lines.

00:06:29.200 | Those who are watching online know that's not the case.

00:06:31.140 | I have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,

00:06:33.080 | just sort of blocked out here on this calendar.

00:06:35.380 | And what I wanted to do is roughly block out

00:06:37.600 | what my week looks like this week.

00:06:40.060 | And I have three categories here.

00:06:41.700 | Deep work, admin, and appointment.

00:06:45.120 | So things that are sort of scheduled on the calendar

00:06:47.220 | that you have to go and go somewhere else.

00:06:49.660 | So this week, and I looked at my calendar this morning,

00:06:53.460 | so this is pretty accurate.

00:06:55.080 | Most mornings, Monday through Thursday,

00:06:58.220 | actually every morning this week, not most, every morning,

00:07:01.060 | I can just write in the morning.

00:07:02.660 | So I'm blocking that off for deep work.

00:07:05.540 | I'm only doing this if you're listening,

00:07:08.620 | Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

00:07:12.620 | Friday, we're leaving to go visit my parents.

00:07:16.980 | So we're not doing any work at all.

00:07:18.060 | So we're gonna cross that off, no work on Friday.

00:07:20.140 | So we've got four days.

00:07:21.900 | Can do deep work every morning, working on, I'm writing.

00:07:26.200 | All right, most afternoons,

00:07:29.220 | I can put Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

00:07:31.300 | plenty of time to do another deep work session.

00:07:35.220 | So I'm blocking that off on my calendar.

00:07:38.300 | And for me this week, that's gonna be largely,

00:07:41.740 | I'm working on a particular new proof

00:07:43.520 | for a computer science paper,

00:07:45.140 | something I'm working on with some collaborators.

00:07:48.300 | All right, what about appointments?

00:07:49.380 | So these are scheduled things.

00:07:50.260 | Well, because it's a week before a break, it's pretty light.

00:07:54.340 | It's basically today.

00:07:55.320 | So I'm blocking off most of Monday.

00:07:59.140 | And most of my appointments today

00:08:01.580 | are what I'm doing right now.

00:08:03.420 | I'm podcasting, I'm at the studio,

00:08:04.660 | I'm podcasting some other things I wanna get done.

00:08:07.500 | And I'm gonna put a little sliver of deep work

00:08:10.220 | 'cause I do wanna finish

00:08:11.060 | until Jesse has a little more writing I wanna do

00:08:13.040 | because I had to cut it short this morning.

00:08:15.340 | All right, and then on most other days,

00:08:17.900 | there's a little bit of admin work.

00:08:20.220 | If I do 30 to 60 minutes,

00:08:22.060 | most of these on Tuesday, on Wednesday and Thursday,

00:08:26.820 | that is enough to keep on top of things

00:08:29.260 | that are coming via email, things on my calendar,

00:08:31.000 | things that need to get done.

00:08:31.840 | There's still a little detail that I have to get done.

00:08:34.000 | I have a doctoral student who's defending a dissertation

00:08:36.780 | pretty soon after the break, for example,

00:08:38.180 | there's some paperwork to be filed.

00:08:40.560 | There's a web designer working on an update to our website.

00:08:44.260 | I have a couple of things to send her.

00:08:45.460 | So about 30 to 60 minutes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

00:08:49.460 | will keep me very much on top of administrative work,

00:08:52.900 | email requests, et cetera.

00:08:54.020 | So here we have a calendar that if you're looking online,

00:08:57.160 | you'll see deep work every morning,

00:09:00.220 | Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

00:09:01.700 | is sort of modest admin block.

00:09:03.220 | And then another deep work session in the afternoon,

00:09:04.940 | space in between, plenty of breathing room,

00:09:07.100 | go for a walk, whatever.

00:09:08.380 | These days can all end at three or four o'clock.

00:09:11.900 | Monday is the one day where I have sort of appointments

00:09:14.260 | during the day after a morning deep work session,

00:09:15.880 | I'm not even working on Friday.

00:09:17.940 | And that's my holiday schedule.

00:09:19.540 | Now here's the thought experiment I want you to follow.

00:09:23.420 | What if this was my schedule every week?

00:09:26.680 | Right?

00:09:29.180 | What would happen to my observable productivity

00:09:33.500 | if I had more or less a schedule like this every week?

00:09:35.740 | Two deep work sessions a day,

00:09:37.660 | 30 to 60 minutes admin, one day with appointments,

00:09:39.980 | and on a regular basis,

00:09:41.040 | maybe an entire day just taken off to do other things.

00:09:43.280 | I would argue that my visible productivity

00:09:45.660 | and the things that people at the scale of years

00:09:48.080 | would notice about me, which is books, academic articles,

00:09:52.740 | New Yorker articles, and this podcast.

00:09:55.700 | The big visible things that define my impact.

00:09:59.520 | That productivity would not only be preserved

00:10:02.940 | with this schedule, it would almost certainly be increased.

00:10:05.900 | More articles, books at a faster rate,

00:10:08.980 | higher quality probably for this podcast,

00:10:10.780 | just because of the more than enough time

00:10:12.780 | to work on these things,

00:10:13.740 | consistency working on these things,

00:10:15.180 | and more than enough time for the mind to refract

00:10:17.940 | and reconfigure between things.

00:10:19.820 | I would probably be more productive.

00:10:21.760 | I think a lot of people would have a similar conclusion

00:10:25.780 | that if they could take the pre-holiday week schedule

00:10:28.420 | and do that every week of the year,

00:10:31.220 | their observable important productivity

00:10:33.420 | would not diminish.

00:10:34.300 | If anything, it would probably increase.

00:10:36.300 | Now let's compare this to a normal week.

00:10:41.140 | Let's grab a week in mid-January.

00:10:43.780 | What goes wrong with this sort of

00:10:45.300 | pre-holiday week schedule I put down here?

00:10:47.180 | Well, there's two things that change.

00:10:48.520 | One, the number of appointments would rapidly increase.

00:10:52.940 | The idea that I've just consolidated them

00:10:54.700 | for the half a day on one day would be unrealistic

00:10:58.580 | under my normal scheduling demands.

00:11:00.580 | So there would be, I would say,

00:11:01.500 | three to four, at least three to four

00:11:02.980 | other non-trivial appointments

00:11:04.260 | scattered throughout these days.

00:11:06.380 | I would also say these admin blocks

00:11:07.860 | would have to double or sometimes triple in length.

00:11:10.260 | There's just way more things pulling at my attention

00:11:13.820 | that I have to do that are time-consuming.

00:11:15.260 | So now maybe I need on average two hours a day of admin.

00:11:18.900 | So you expand the admin,

00:11:20.540 | you throw in a lot more of these appointments,

00:11:22.820 | and maybe you can preserve, let's say,

00:11:25.500 | the morning deep work session,

00:11:26.620 | but what you really lose is two things.

00:11:29.340 | A, a lot of those afternoon deep work sessions go away,

00:11:32.620 | and the length of your workday increases.

00:11:34.980 | When I'm in my normal schedule,

00:11:36.340 | the only way to actually make that all work

00:11:37.900 | is I have to also aggressively time block plan

00:11:40.580 | just to try to make every piece fit.

00:11:42.580 | I have to combine that with a weekly plan

00:11:44.580 | and a strategic plan to try to make everything fit.

00:11:47.660 | In this holiday schedule that's on, that I drew on the screen,

00:11:50.880 | I don't even have to be that on my game,

00:11:53.060 | productivity speaking.

00:11:54.420 | It's a pretty simple schedule.

00:11:56.020 | I work, take my time, do some admin,

00:11:57.980 | go for a breather, do a little more work.

00:11:59.180 | I'm done.

00:12:00.020 | So that's what we lose in a normal schedule.

00:12:02.980 | A lot less deep work, a lot longer working hours,

00:12:05.900 | and just a lot more grinding organizational skill required

00:12:09.460 | even to just sort of get through the day, which is draining.

00:12:12.620 | And what do we gain from that?

00:12:14.320 | Less visible productivity,

00:12:16.920 | in the sense of producing things that the world notices

00:12:19.900 | and would assess as being valuable.

00:12:22.380 | That actually goes down.

00:12:24.560 | So in some sense, this is my question

00:12:28.380 | in this holiday period.

00:12:30.000 | And this is, I would say, probably the question

00:12:33.320 | in knowledge, work, productivity,

00:12:34.660 | the one that we're not answering,

00:12:36.000 | the one that we're ignoring to instead focus on the minutiae.

00:12:39.660 | Well, is Slack more efficient than email?

00:12:43.360 | What's our rules around setting up meetings?

00:12:45.960 | Are you a bullet journal person or a time block planner?

00:12:48.520 | As we look at the particular leaves on the trees,

00:12:53.280 | we're missing the outline of the whole forest.

00:12:55.480 | And this is the question that we're not asking,

00:12:57.040 | but I think we should.

00:12:58.760 | Why don't we have every week

00:13:01.000 | be like the week before the holiday break?

00:13:04.640 | What is preventing us from doing it?

00:13:06.560 | What would we have to change to make that the standard?

00:13:09.580 | And if we did, would our organizations, our universities,

00:13:13.320 | our companies, our small entrepreneurial endeavors,

00:13:15.620 | would they fall apart?

00:13:17.500 | Or would they actually become better at what they do?

00:13:19.680 | That's the question we should be asking.

00:13:21.360 | So I thought I would pose it to you, my audience,

00:13:23.720 | because you have a week to actually think about it.

00:13:26.580 | - Is there a reason why you draw

00:13:30.080 | the morning blocks on the bottom?

00:13:32.180 | - Yeah, that's an interesting question.

00:13:36.580 | That matches, I have kind of reversed it, haven't I?

00:13:41.580 | - I just didn't know if there was some.

00:13:44.200 | - Yeah, 'cause in my time block planner, I go down.

00:13:47.200 | In Google Calendar, time also goes down.

00:13:50.960 | And yet in my mind, I think this is interesting.

00:13:53.840 | When I visualize my schedule in my mind,

00:13:56.720 | I think about time moving upwards.

00:14:00.040 | Yeah, so this is, if you're watching this on the YouTube,

00:14:02.120 | you'll see an interesting artifact of the way my mind works.

00:14:06.160 | My mind visualizes schedules as time moving up.

00:14:09.080 | - Yeah, you're climbing a ladder.

00:14:10.280 | - You're climbing the ladder,

00:14:11.240 | you're piling things on top of each other.

00:14:13.840 | That's an interesting observation.

00:14:15.640 | Yeah, so maybe I'll label this.

00:14:17.160 | All right, for those who are watching,

00:14:18.600 | I'm gonna add an expository label here.

00:14:20.940 | Let's do, I'll put like 9 a.m. at the bottom.

00:14:26.840 | And then I'll make the very top here like 4 p.m.

00:14:31.640 | This is my ideal schedule.

00:14:34.560 | Now I can't complain because I actually get to do this

00:14:37.360 | during the summer, every year.

00:14:39.760 | So I get my taste of this.

00:14:41.320 | So it's not just the week before.

00:14:43.240 | For most people, it's like just one or two weeks

00:14:44.960 | or this is true.

00:14:45.800 | I get this all summer, this schedule.

00:14:47.680 | And I love this schedule.

00:14:49.120 | - So in the evenings, you'll read

00:14:51.600 | or before nine o'clock, you'll read a little bit?

00:14:53.440 | - Yeah, I mean, it's kids.

00:14:55.120 | Well, it's exercise, kids, other stuff, kids.

00:14:58.120 | So it's family stuff.

00:15:01.000 | - People would probably be curious about

00:15:03.920 | when you read your five books on that schedule.

00:15:07.600 | - So typically, if I'm up, I'm reading in the morning.

00:15:12.400 | Like this morning, I was up.

00:15:15.360 | So I read in the morning, I read in bed.

00:15:17.920 | And then yeah, we put together,

00:15:18.880 | we do reading sessions in the evening.

00:15:21.240 | So now if I, usually at least one of my books

00:15:25.240 | will be for work.

00:15:26.320 | Like I need it for a New Yorker article

00:15:28.000 | or something like that.

00:15:28.840 | And because that's work, for those, I'll put aside time.

00:15:31.960 | You know, hey, this is what I'm gonna do in the afternoon.

00:15:34.840 | You know, I'm gonna put aside an hour here,

00:15:36.080 | an hour there.

00:15:36.920 | We'll see.

00:15:39.320 | Did we talk about Thriller December last week?

00:15:41.080 | We did, right?

00:15:41.920 | - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:15:42.760 | Okay, so hopefully people, this is your week.

00:15:45.000 | The week that you're off is the week

00:15:46.240 | to really make progress on Thriller December.

00:15:48.120 | So hopefully people are going well.

00:15:50.080 | I'm three thrillers deep now.

00:15:52.160 | I'm now reading, I added to my list.

00:15:54.960 | I went back, I aborted from one thriller.

00:15:57.280 | I'll talk about that when we do our reading roundup

00:15:59.440 | next month.

00:16:00.280 | I was like, okay, I gotta get the bad taste out of my mouth.

00:16:02.840 | So I went back and I'm reading Robin Cook's

00:16:06.160 | original novel, "Coma" from 1976.

00:16:09.840 | Invented the medical.

00:16:11.120 | He says it invented the medical thriller genre.

00:16:13.600 | Like him and Crichton might argue about that,

00:16:15.080 | but it's really good.

00:16:16.360 | It's really good.

00:16:18.160 | They haven't even got to the thrillery parts yet.

00:16:19.840 | It's like third year med students

00:16:22.600 | at Boston Memorial Hospital.

00:16:24.640 | And there's two cases in a row

00:16:27.800 | of young, healthy patients going in for surgery

00:16:32.240 | and something happens during the surgery

00:16:33.840 | and they get brain dead.

00:16:35.520 | And you're starting to realize,

00:16:36.600 | I think it, but so Cook gets into the details

00:16:38.280 | of all the, the science of, of how anesthesia works.

00:16:41.520 | And so it's like brings you into the hospital world.

00:16:43.440 | It's like ER in a book.

00:16:45.080 | You're starting to realize like there's something

00:16:46.560 | going afoul here.

00:16:48.120 | I think someone's organs are being harvested

00:16:50.400 | and it's cool.

00:16:51.520 | I'm enjoying it.

00:16:52.360 | All right.

00:16:53.200 | Anyways, thriller of December.

00:16:54.040 | You got one more week, read.

00:16:56.200 | All right.

00:16:57.080 | We got a good collection of questions to dive into.

00:17:00.400 | Before we do, I want to briefly mention

00:17:01.880 | one of the sponsors that makes

00:17:03.800 | the Deep Questions podcast possible.

00:17:07.120 | That is our friends at WREN,

00:17:09.600 | W R E N, which is a startup that's making it easy

00:17:13.080 | for everyone to make a meaningful difference

00:17:17.040 | in the climate crisis.

00:17:19.360 | So the way the website works now

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00:17:22.720 | where you calculate your carbon footprint,

00:17:25.200 | then offset it by supporting awesome climate projects

00:17:28.760 | that plant trees, protect rainforces

00:17:30.400 | and remove CO2 from the sky.

00:17:32.400 | So you can actually offset the carbon footprint

00:17:34.400 | that you are generating elsewhere in your life.

00:17:38.160 | Now, the idea behind this,

00:17:39.240 | why I think this is an interesting strategy

00:17:41.840 | is that it lowers the barrier of entry to do something.

00:17:46.800 | As we learn in almost any type of endeavor,

00:17:50.560 | the best way to do something big

00:17:52.440 | is to start with something small.

00:17:53.480 | You have to break that barrier.

00:17:54.680 | That step from I'm doing nothing

00:17:56.080 | to I'm doing something is the key step.

00:17:58.320 | Now, once you're in the mindset of like,

00:17:59.560 | oh, I'm already doing something

00:18:00.840 | about this issue I care about,

00:18:02.440 | now you're more open to doing more things.

00:18:04.200 | It's the gateway drug into more effective action.

00:18:09.200 | Now, I think that's important, especially right now.

00:18:11.000 | Like one of the things I've noticed,

00:18:12.040 | if you'll excuse a little cultural commentary,

00:18:14.920 | especially in sort of a place like suburban DC,

00:18:19.720 | there's this list of sort of approved things you can do

00:18:25.080 | to help with something like climate change

00:18:27.200 | that tend to have big price tags,

00:18:29.680 | which is fine if you can do it.

00:18:30.880 | And I'm talking about like solar installations

00:18:32.760 | or buying expensive electric cars.

00:18:33.960 | If you can do that, great.

00:18:35.000 | But for people who don't have that budget,

00:18:36.720 | it can make them be in a situation

00:18:38.160 | where they feel like, well, then I can't do anything.

00:18:39.760 | So I'm just gonna turn that off.

00:18:40.960 | I can't afford a Tesla.

00:18:42.520 | So I guess this is not for me.

00:18:44.000 | That's why I like something like REN.

00:18:45.320 | It's an entry point where you don't have to buy a Tesla

00:18:48.160 | or cover your whole roof in solar panels

00:18:50.200 | to feel like at least you're starting.

00:18:52.120 | And you can break that seal.

00:18:54.520 | So I'm glad, I think it's from a social psych perspective,

00:18:56.840 | it's an interesting idea.

00:18:58.480 | So sign up for REN is an easy way

00:18:59.800 | to do something meaningful about the climate crisis.

00:19:03.400 | So it's gonna take all of us to end the climate crisis.

00:19:05.240 | Do your part today by signing up for REN.

00:19:06.720 | Go to ren.co/deep, sign up,

00:19:10.320 | and they will plant 10 extra trees in your name.

00:19:13.000 | That's W-R-E-N.co/deep.

00:19:16.800 | Start making a difference.

00:19:18.080 | I only mentioned the solar panels

00:19:21.240 | because my neighbor's putting them on today.

00:19:24.880 | I was hearing the hammering.

00:19:25.840 | So that's why it's on my mind.

00:19:28.440 | - He's got a great roof for it too.

00:19:30.120 | We have a terrible roof for solar panels.

00:19:32.120 | - Really? - I mean, you've seen my house.

00:19:33.080 | It's like straight up.

00:19:35.160 | And then these like Victorian weirdnesses,

00:19:38.080 | you know, all angles or whatever.

00:19:40.880 | But my neighbor has like a, from a big flat South facing,

00:19:45.880 | you know, fill that thing up and electricity

00:19:48.440 | is gonna electricity is gonna flow.

00:19:50.240 | The rest of us will have to do with REN.

00:19:52.560 | I also wanna talk about my friends at ZocDoc.

00:19:56.640 | ZocDoc is the only free app that lets you find

00:20:00.480 | and book doctors who are patient reviewed,

00:20:03.360 | take your insurance and are available when you need them

00:20:06.400 | to treat almost every condition under the sun.

00:20:09.280 | I don't know if you know this, Jesse,

00:20:10.280 | but people have been getting sick in recent years.

00:20:13.560 | - Yeah. - Stuff going around.

00:20:14.920 | Do you know about this?

00:20:16.280 | - Heard about it. - Yeah.

00:20:18.040 | So people, especially younger people are saying,

00:20:19.760 | I need a doctor and then wondering,

00:20:22.000 | well, how do I find a doctor?

00:20:23.480 | Like, do I go to the yellow pages?

00:20:26.240 | Do I, you know, ask friends?

00:20:27.960 | You do, but then you don't know,

00:20:29.000 | like, are they taking patients?

00:20:30.360 | Do they like this person?

00:20:31.920 | ZocDoc makes it simple.

00:20:33.360 | It says, okay, here's doctors.

00:20:34.360 | What do you wanna look for?

00:20:35.200 | Your area, this specialty, take this insurance,

00:20:37.920 | has openings, boom, here's the list.

00:20:39.920 | Okay, now let me look at patient reviews

00:20:42.160 | of each of these doctors to see what's going on.

00:20:44.400 | Does this one have a really long wait?

00:20:45.800 | Is there something fishy?

00:20:46.640 | Is this one great?

00:20:47.480 | People love them.

00:20:48.320 | It just makes it easy to get signed up

00:20:51.320 | for the medical care that you need.

00:20:54.200 | As I've talked about before,

00:20:55.240 | I have now two different healthcare providers

00:20:57.880 | who use ZocDoc, my primary care physician,

00:21:00.240 | and my dentist.

00:21:01.720 | So in addition to helping me identify these providers,

00:21:04.720 | it also makes it simple to do,

00:21:05.920 | let's say, the intake paperwork.

00:21:07.920 | I can check in online ahead of time,

00:21:09.760 | so it makes the experience great.

00:21:11.240 | So I'm a big ZocDoc fan.

00:21:13.680 | 95% because of all the services they offer

00:21:16.840 | and the convenience it introduces,

00:21:18.200 | 5% because I like saying the name, ZocDoc.

00:21:22.000 | So go to zocdoc.com/deep

00:21:25.040 | and download the ZocDoc app for free,

00:21:27.840 | then find and book a top-rated doctor today,

00:21:30.000 | many who will be available within 24 hours.

00:21:32.480 | That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com/deep,

00:21:37.480 | zocdoc.com/deep.

00:21:41.560 | Now, interestingly, I don't know if you know this,

00:21:44.900 | but the actor The Rock also sponsors ZocDoc on his podcast,

00:21:49.900 | and there the promo code is zocdoc.com/rock.

00:21:53.840 | Wait, we need one more.

00:21:57.440 | There's a, what's another rhyming?

00:22:00.720 | So there's a person I know who,

00:22:03.200 | he has a dock in Rockport.

00:22:07.360 | He has a podcast about it,

00:22:09.040 | and it's about living by the water in Rockport,

00:22:11.320 | and his ad for ZocDoc is zocdoc.com/rockdoc.

00:22:15.240 | I could keep going.

00:22:17.400 | ZocDoc is a great company.

00:22:21.840 | All right, let's do some questions.

00:22:24.080 | All right, Jesse, what's our first question here?

00:22:26.280 | - All right, first question is from

00:22:27.960 | Little Better Than Average.

00:22:29.960 | In the era of quiet quitting,

00:22:31.800 | the new normal is to just do the bare minimum.

00:22:34.440 | Does this mean that showing even a little bit of initiative

00:22:37.320 | and willingness to do more important work

00:22:39.200 | can now set you apart from others?

00:22:41.160 | - I have two parts to my answer here.

00:22:44.360 | I mean, first, let me just address this idea

00:22:47.480 | that we're in an era of quiet quitting,

00:22:50.600 | where quiet quitting is so ubiquitous

00:22:52.580 | that it's just assumed that most people around you

00:22:54.860 | are doing this.

00:22:56.000 | That, of course, is nonsense.

00:22:58.000 | The thing about internet movements

00:23:00.480 | is that because they're leveraging

00:23:02.200 | the amplification effects of internet distributed

00:23:06.440 | and algorithmic curation,

00:23:07.640 | they have a way for those who are plugged into it,

00:23:09.500 | they have a way of making internet trends

00:23:11.440 | seeming universal.

00:23:12.720 | Everyone is doing this.

00:23:15.080 | Everyone is feeling this.

00:23:16.120 | We see this on topic after topic, right?

00:23:19.180 | So like you're plugged into,

00:23:21.500 | let's say you're plugged into med Twitter

00:23:24.640 | during the COVID pandemic,

00:23:26.000 | suddenly in your mind,

00:23:28.760 | like all of these particular possible terrible things

00:23:32.260 | around COVID are happening everywhere.

00:23:33.960 | And it's only by the grace of God

00:23:36.040 | you've survived being outside for 10 minutes

00:23:38.260 | because the internet makes these things seem totalizing.

00:23:42.200 | Let's say you're in political Twitter,

00:23:44.340 | you're really plugged in the conservative Twitter

00:23:48.660 | and like it makes it feel like,

00:23:51.200 | or independent Twitter,

00:23:52.520 | it makes it feel like essentially 80% of the populace

00:23:56.320 | has been canceled.

00:23:57.640 | And there's almost no one left

00:23:59.520 | and there's marauding bands of cancelers

00:24:01.780 | and like you're a day away from it.

00:24:02.980 | 'Cause it totalize,

00:24:03.820 | it makes it seem like this is happening everywhere.

00:24:05.680 | Well, same thing for a trend like quiet quitting.

00:24:07.920 | I'm sure the actual number of people

00:24:10.920 | who would say I am doing this,

00:24:13.280 | I'm purposely pulling back

00:24:14.260 | is a relatively small percentage

00:24:16.080 | and has no real large effect on,

00:24:17.960 | let's say the dynamics of your particular workplace.

00:24:22.200 | But the internet, if you're plugged into,

00:24:23.880 | let's say TikTok makes it seem like everyone is doing this.

00:24:25.920 | So that's just a side commentary on internet movements.

00:24:29.440 | That's not to say by the way, that it's not important.

00:24:31.400 | I think internet movements play a good signaling purpose.

00:24:33.880 | Like quiet quitting's importance is not that,

00:24:36.080 | oh my God, everyone's doing this now,

00:24:37.460 | what's gonna happen to the economy?

00:24:38.880 | Because of course that's not what's happening.

00:24:40.680 | It's importance is there's a real signal

00:24:42.920 | that's being amplified here.

00:24:44.580 | So there's an actual unease or dis-ease

00:24:46.760 | that this particular generation is having with work

00:24:48.960 | as they're trying to figure out

00:24:49.940 | the role of work in their life.

00:24:51.240 | That signal's important

00:24:52.660 | and it's important to amplify that signal.

00:24:54.580 | So that's where internet movements are important

00:24:56.440 | is that they amplify signals

00:24:58.000 | that might be meaningful to shifts happening in the culture,

00:25:00.800 | but we have to be careful

00:25:02.880 | because the tendency or human wiring

00:25:04.560 | is to receive it as if this thing is happening universally.

00:25:07.840 | So you can be worried about COVID

00:25:09.800 | without thinking that you're probably

00:25:12.600 | gonna be the last person alive in your town.

00:25:14.640 | You can be worried about things like cancellation

00:25:16.680 | without also having to believe

00:25:17.940 | that you're like one day away from it

00:25:20.060 | and most universities have lost

00:25:21.660 | half of their faculty to canceling.

00:25:23.200 | So this is the tension of internet movements.

00:25:25.680 | They can amplify messages,

00:25:28.640 | but that amplification mechanism

00:25:32.200 | can deceive us in the feeling like these trends

00:25:34.200 | are way more universal than they really are.

00:25:36.800 | This is a bit of a divergence,

00:25:37.940 | but just a little bit of internet culture chat.

00:25:39.520 | So what about this particular question though?

00:25:42.200 | If people are average,

00:25:45.700 | do I have to do just a little bit more to stand out?

00:25:47.720 | Yes, this is true.

00:25:48.680 | And we don't need quiet quitting for this

00:25:50.020 | to be an effective dynamic.

00:25:51.140 | This is something I've talked about for years,

00:25:53.460 | especially if you are entry level

00:25:55.340 | in a knowledge work setting.

00:25:57.560 | You do not have to be a superstar

00:26:01.740 | on a national scale to quickly get ahead.

00:26:05.660 | You have to just be a little bit better

00:26:07.300 | than the other young employees at your same employer.

00:26:09.940 | And that's not as hard as you think.

00:26:13.020 | And in particular, there's two things you can do

00:26:14.620 | that will almost always make you stand out.

00:26:17.140 | One, deliver.

00:26:20.040 | So people trust you not to drop the ball.

00:26:22.040 | If they ask you to do something, you do it.

00:26:24.000 | And you get it done by the time

00:26:24.920 | you said it's gonna get done.

00:26:25.760 | And they don't have to worry about bothering you

00:26:27.360 | and sending you follow up messages and saying,

00:26:29.640 | sometimes Cal does this, sometimes Cal doesn't.

00:26:32.260 | They trust you're gonna get things done.

00:26:34.000 | It's not that hard to do, but it's pretty rare.

00:26:37.400 | And that gets noticed.

00:26:39.360 | A quick test about whether or not you're succeeding

00:26:42.440 | on that particular property.

00:26:44.200 | Do the people you work for send lots of follow up emails

00:26:48.140 | or chats after they ask you to do something like,

00:26:50.260 | hey, how's this going?

00:26:51.100 | Have you done this yet?

00:26:51.920 | If so, that means they don't really trust you.

00:26:54.180 | If they don't, then you're probably doing this right.

00:26:57.060 | Number two, exceed expectations.

00:27:00.420 | You don't need to be a perfectionist,

00:27:03.220 | but just when you get a task,

00:27:05.060 | think like, what do they really need here?

00:27:07.460 | What are they really looking for?

00:27:08.380 | Let me make sure I get them what's really gonna help them.

00:27:10.660 | Like, what is the, why did they want me

00:27:13.220 | to pull out these quotes?

00:27:14.600 | Oh, they're trying to put together this marketing message.

00:27:17.240 | My boss is putting together this whatever.

00:27:19.360 | And so what would really make that succeed?

00:27:20.800 | Well, let me pull out some better, let me call up a client.

00:27:23.520 | I know what he needs.

00:27:25.200 | And so let me make sure that like,

00:27:26.480 | I'm really meeting those expectations.

00:27:28.480 | You don't have to be perfectionist.

00:27:29.400 | It's not like you're knocking down the park.

00:27:31.320 | It's just that we know when Cal turns something in,

00:27:33.760 | it's gonna be what we need.

00:27:35.080 | It's gonna be good.

00:27:35.920 | It's not gonna be, hey, I did the task, man.

00:27:38.200 | Why are you on my back?

00:27:39.040 | Like, technically I put some quotes down.

00:27:41.000 | You know, like this guy did, this client did ask me

00:27:43.740 | where the bathroom is.

00:27:44.580 | That is technically a quote.

00:27:46.500 | Get off my back, quiet quitting.

00:27:49.420 | I'm worth more than my labor.

00:27:50.780 | I'm a human being.

00:27:51.860 | Just meet the expectations you're looking for.

00:27:55.420 | You do these two things, in about one year,

00:27:57.900 | you're gonna, your path is going to angle upwards

00:28:02.180 | much quicker.

00:28:03.420 | It's not hard, but it's rare.

00:28:05.540 | Of course, the question is why?

00:28:08.100 | Like why bother advancing quickly when you're new to a job?

00:28:11.360 | I mean, isn't that just playing into, you know,

00:28:13.760 | the sort of exploitative dynamic of capitalism

00:28:17.040 | or something like that?

00:28:17.920 | The reason is, is because when you advance quickly,

00:28:19.920 | you build career capital.

00:28:21.080 | Career capital is what gives you control over your career.

00:28:23.860 | Career capital is what's gonna set you free.

00:28:25.880 | Career capital is what's going to allow you

00:28:27.600 | to decide what you want your working life to be like,

00:28:30.440 | mold it towards what resonates and away from what doesn't.

00:28:33.000 | It is the only way to make your job work for you

00:28:37.480 | and not the other way around.

00:28:39.540 | The things that make great work great is appealing.

00:28:43.540 | It's in demand.

00:28:44.700 | You have to have something to offer in return.

00:28:47.560 | So if you don't like aspects of work,

00:28:51.700 | you don't like this thing or this boss or these hours,

00:28:55.160 | you can't complain your way out of it.

00:28:57.500 | You usually can't quit your way out of it,

00:28:59.660 | but you can career capital your way out of it.

00:29:01.500 | You become so good, you can't be ignored.

00:29:03.260 | And then you use those skills as leverage and say,

00:29:05.340 | not today.

00:29:06.180 | Now I'm doing this.

00:29:07.100 | Now I'm doing that.

00:29:08.020 | I'm going over here.

00:29:08.960 | I'm freelancing.

00:29:09.800 | I'm renegotiating my contract.

00:29:11.020 | I'm going to this company that just specialize on this,

00:29:13.180 | fully remote, and I only check in once a week.

00:29:15.560 | All of those types of things that you could use

00:29:17.580 | to take control of your career

00:29:18.820 | are returns on investment of career capital

00:29:22.140 | gathered by you being good and advancing quickly.

00:29:24.380 | This is the quickest way to get to career capital

00:29:26.120 | if you're new.

00:29:27.720 | Be reliable, don't drop the ball,

00:29:29.500 | deliver past expectations.

00:29:30.980 | Do those things for a year.

00:29:32.940 | Your trajectory goes fast.

00:29:34.880 | Just remember, as you build your capital,

00:29:36.660 | don't wait too long to invest it.

00:29:38.300 | Actually, I have an article,

00:29:42.140 | might be out by the time this comes out.

00:29:43.940 | I have a quiet quitting article I wrote for The New Yorker

00:29:46.980 | that we were fact checking it and copyed it.

00:29:50.660 | So I think it's ready.

00:29:51.500 | So it's probably, it's kind of like a year

00:29:53.140 | in review style article.

00:29:54.100 | So probably, I don't know,

00:29:55.340 | but probably by the time you hear this podcast,

00:29:57.640 | I'll have a quiet quitting article

00:29:59.660 | you can find at The New Yorker.

00:30:00.500 | And if not, then, you know,

00:30:01.540 | it'll be like in the new year or something.

00:30:03.140 | But I've been thinking a lot about quiet quitting recently.

00:30:07.060 | All right, what's our next question?

00:30:09.260 | - Next question is from Yorick.

00:30:11.180 | I am a consultant expected to work

00:30:13.300 | on billable client projects from nine to five.

00:30:16.420 | My employer expects all other work

00:30:18.820 | to happen outside of those hours.

00:30:20.680 | I've been trying to minimize these out of our obligations,

00:30:24.440 | but I definitely feel the pressure

00:30:25.700 | to give up more of my time.

00:30:27.440 | On a normal day, I am busy until 8.30 PM.

00:30:30.800 | How do I reclaim my time?

00:30:34.180 | - Well, this is the reality of your job

00:30:37.340 | and the reality of a lot of these billable hour jobs.

00:30:39.740 | So this is true of a lot of lawyer positions,

00:30:42.060 | definitely true about a lot of high

00:30:43.220 | in consultancy positions.

00:30:44.840 | You're supposed to be billing client hours

00:30:48.420 | to a certain level.

00:30:50.300 | So you're actually pretty lucky

00:30:51.740 | that it's 40 hours a week in law,

00:30:54.460 | it can be much higher.

00:30:56.300 | And then everything else has to happen outside of that.

00:30:59.560 | And the employer doesn't really care where you do it.

00:31:01.420 | It's like, get that done,

00:31:02.260 | but like you need to, we're gonna track your billables.

00:31:05.380 | And then we have all this other stuff.

00:31:07.860 | York here who asked this question,

00:31:09.340 | he had sent us a longer elaboration.

00:31:11.340 | I mean, a lot of the stuff is internal focused.

00:31:14.260 | So he mentioned like doing an internal training

00:31:16.900 | about a new technology, setting up,

00:31:19.220 | it's like internal facing admin work.

00:31:21.300 | And all that's just like, hey, you get that done,

00:31:22.920 | but you can't reduce your billable hours.

00:31:24.620 | That's the reality of those jobs.

00:31:26.260 | So you're not going to be able to,

00:31:30.060 | almost certainly not going to be able to just

00:31:32.300 | request your way out of it and just say,

00:31:36.740 | I want less billable hours.

00:31:39.180 | So I have time to do this other type of work,

00:31:40.780 | or I don't want to do other type of work

00:31:41.980 | because they need the billable hours

00:31:43.740 | and that work has to get done.

00:31:45.140 | You have three options if you want to improve things.

00:31:47.500 | And these are based on experience I've had,

00:31:49.220 | like watching people in these situations,

00:31:51.100 | different ways they've finagled this.

00:31:53.540 | So number one is you can build an internal practice.

00:31:57.700 | I've seen this both in consultancies

00:31:59.620 | and law firms.

00:32:01.300 | It's where you get a specialty that you do.

00:32:04.420 | And you essentially build a independent practice

00:32:07.420 | within the larger company that you work for.

00:32:10.180 | We say, I do this type of work.

00:32:12.100 | Usually it's you're gathering your own clients,

00:32:14.820 | you're dealing with those clients,

00:32:16.580 | you're billing at a higher rate than other people

00:32:19.840 | because it's a specialty that you do.

00:32:22.020 | And you basically are hands off

00:32:23.420 | from the rest of the organization.

00:32:25.020 | Now in the sort of post COVID time,

00:32:26.660 | you might negotiate this with a,

00:32:29.300 | you're largely remote,

00:32:30.340 | maybe you move to somewhere farther away.

00:32:32.620 | You only see that you're only in the office once a week.

00:32:34.580 | Like you're kind of detaching yourself

00:32:36.320 | from the day-to-day office culture.

00:32:37.860 | And you're more of like an independent contractor,

00:32:39.900 | even though you are a paid employee of that firm.

00:32:42.220 | I see this all the time.

00:32:43.480 | Like, look, I'm our media specialist.

00:32:46.500 | I'm our whatever retirement law specialist at the law firm.

00:32:50.300 | I bring in money, you're happy about it.

00:32:52.560 | I bring in work.

00:32:53.880 | I just go and do that.

00:32:55.060 | I report back once a month

00:32:56.340 | on how things are going to leave me alone.

00:32:58.660 | That's one option.

00:33:00.300 | And that gives you more control.

00:33:01.180 | Now you're kind of out of the normal stream

00:33:02.460 | of doing the other type of office work.

00:33:04.780 | And you're in more control of your hours.

00:33:06.140 | You can control that and make up time if you need to.

00:33:10.060 | Option number two,

00:33:11.180 | quit your job and do the same work as a freelancer.

00:33:14.580 | This happens all the time in DC.

00:33:17.500 | Jesse, you probably know people who have done this.

00:33:19.000 | In DC, this happens all the time

00:33:20.340 | where there's these really specialized

00:33:22.900 | kind of consulting positions,

00:33:24.920 | procurement for whatever, USAID aid.

00:33:29.100 | And it's like a very specific expertise or whatever.

00:33:32.260 | And you're doing it for a consulting firm

00:33:33.900 | and you realize like,

00:33:34.740 | I could just contract with some clients directly

00:33:37.300 | and just do it hourly.

00:33:39.300 | I know some people who have done this

00:33:41.340 | and they actually make more money

00:33:42.920 | than they were making before.

00:33:44.660 | They have more control over their hours

00:33:46.820 | because who cares, right?

00:33:47.660 | It's their money.

00:33:48.480 | They can say, I don't, I work this much or that much.

00:33:51.060 | They can control how much they do.

00:33:52.620 | The internal admin stuff goes away.

00:33:54.040 | There's no internal trainings to organize

00:33:55.660 | when you work for yourself.

00:33:56.500 | It's harder and more stressful, right?

00:33:58.100 | So there's no free lunch,

00:33:59.980 | but if you have a very specialized expertise,

00:34:02.520 | there may be an opportunity for you

00:34:04.700 | to just do that directly with clients.

00:34:06.700 | And then you gain autonomy

00:34:08.780 | in exchange for a little bit more economic risk.

00:34:12.320 | The final option is get a different job.

00:34:14.960 | The reality of billable hours is this,

00:34:18.020 | it's what these jobs are like.

00:34:19.940 | So get a different job.

00:34:21.140 | But when you go to get a different job,

00:34:22.640 | this time be more careful about how you evaluate them.

00:34:25.620 | I'm assuming the way,

00:34:26.660 | like many people who end up in these jobs,

00:34:28.380 | they end up there because of money or prestige.

00:34:31.120 | I'm looking for a job.

00:34:32.380 | This consultancy is offering this much money.

00:34:35.380 | Hey, that's impressive.

00:34:37.140 | That's a good salary.

00:34:38.220 | I feel validated.

00:34:39.060 | Let's do that.

00:34:40.640 | Or I went to law school.

00:34:42.220 | Here's the big firm.

00:34:43.060 | The big firms are the hard ones to get into.

00:34:44.460 | I got a big firm job.

00:34:46.300 | That's impressive in the eyes of the people

00:34:47.940 | I know from law school.

00:34:49.500 | I can pat myself on the back.

00:34:50.860 | That's how you end up in these jobs.

00:34:52.280 | You need better criteria.

00:34:53.500 | If you go back to find a different job, York,

00:34:55.180 | you need better criteria.

00:34:56.140 | And these criteria should be based

00:34:57.780 | in lifestyle-centric career planning.

00:34:59.720 | What you want your life to be like in five years from now,

00:35:02.660 | 10 years from now, 15 years from now.

00:35:03.980 | Have that vision, all aspects of your life,

00:35:05.780 | not just the general aspects of the professional.

00:35:08.100 | And then you're working backwards to find careers

00:35:10.420 | and other decisions that can move you towards there.

00:35:13.360 | So if this vision of your life doesn't have you

00:35:16.020 | like plugged in and working till 830,

00:35:17.900 | then you're gonna disqualify a job

00:35:20.240 | that's almost certainly gonna require you

00:35:21.340 | to work till 830.

00:35:22.640 | And so maybe go for a different job.

00:35:24.300 | Oh, but this job doesn't pay as much.

00:35:25.540 | Okay, great.

00:35:26.380 | But this job is in, you know, Boise instead of suburban DC.

00:35:30.380 | The cost of living is half.

00:35:31.540 | It all works out.

00:35:33.120 | So you gotta have a better criteria.

00:35:34.820 | If you're going back to the drawing board,

00:35:36.260 | this time be more careful about how you're selecting

00:35:38.300 | what job you're gonna do.

00:35:40.440 | All right, making progress here.

00:35:45.600 | Our next, what do we got here is our next question.

00:35:48.180 | - All right, next question's from CK.

00:35:50.460 | I recently participated in an online writing course

00:35:53.020 | that used Twitter to distribute your writing

00:35:55.140 | among other writers.

00:35:56.900 | Writing blog posts doesn't reach anyone.

00:35:59.400 | This course's premise is that using social media

00:36:01.820 | lets you see what sticks.

00:36:03.540 | Do you agree?

00:36:04.620 | What do you suggest to a writer just starting out

00:36:06.800 | and looking for feedback?

00:36:08.360 | - That's a good question.

00:36:12.100 | So first of all, I looked up this course's website.

00:36:16.460 | So I don't actually wanna use the name of this course.

00:36:18.340 | So Jesse, don't put the website up on the screen,

00:36:20.700 | but I have the website here.

00:36:22.820 | I have the website for the course.

00:36:24.540 | I'm trying to figure out what he's talking about.

00:36:26.100 | An online writing course that uses Twitter,

00:36:27.620 | because I need to understand what this,

00:36:30.220 | what CK means by wanting to be a writer.

00:36:35.220 | So I'm looking at this course now,

00:36:37.420 | and it says it's a cohort-based course

00:36:41.420 | that focuses on the fundamentals of writing on the internet.

00:36:44.960 | Unlike other writing courses,

00:36:47.220 | you don't learn passively.

00:36:49.020 | It looks like they're using Twitter

00:36:51.100 | to create a sort of writing group.

00:36:52.780 | So you pass your writing around to other people.

00:36:55.180 | Here's a few other things about this.

00:36:57.420 | All right, here's their sales pitch.

00:36:59.980 | Have you ever wanted to start writing online,

00:37:01.420 | but aren't sure the first step to take?

00:37:03.460 | Have you started writing online, but now feel stuck?

00:37:04.980 | Do you have plenty of ideas,

00:37:05.820 | but struggle to put yourself out there?

00:37:07.980 | If any of these sound familiar, this course is for you.

00:37:10.940 | All right, here's a testimonial.

00:37:15.980 | "I'm left more energized now than ever before,

00:37:20.580 | more creative and more clear.

00:37:22.420 | For the first time ever,

00:37:23.260 | I feel excited to sit down for 45 minutes,

00:37:24.860 | completely uninterrupted and do nothing

00:37:25.940 | except think and write."

00:37:27.780 | So look, I'm reading this, Jesse,

00:37:30.060 | and this is not a knock on this course.

00:37:33.620 | I mean, it's a knock on me being sort of

00:37:35.220 | not plugged into internet culture.

00:37:37.100 | But what is this talking about?

00:37:38.660 | I've just read like 10 quotes,

00:37:41.700 | and it's all like about,

00:37:43.180 | they just keep saying writing online,

00:37:45.260 | they're having a hard time writing online.

00:37:47.340 | This will help you get motivated to write online.

00:37:49.060 | The testimonial is like,

00:37:49.900 | "I've never been more energized to write online."

00:37:51.500 | What does that mean, write online?

00:37:53.660 | - It's trying to get you to buy it.

00:37:56.020 | - The course. - Yeah.

00:37:56.980 | - Yeah.

00:37:58.020 | - It just wants you to buy the course.

00:38:00.220 | - But, all right, okay. - It's like a typical

00:38:01.620 | sales page.

00:38:02.540 | - All right, here's some more details.

00:38:03.540 | "The biggest mistake early writers make,

00:38:05.100 | publishing weekly blog posts into the void.

00:38:07.600 | In the beginning, you think you know

00:38:10.020 | what you want to write about,

00:38:10.860 | and you think you know what people want to read,

00:38:12.340 | but newsflash, you don't, you need feedback,

00:38:14.220 | and this thing helps you get feedback."

00:38:15.420 | So what is it that,

00:38:16.420 | what's the problem this is solving for people?

00:38:19.460 | Like when it's saying writing online,

00:38:20.740 | do they mean like content marketing?

00:38:22.260 | Like, "I want to write online and make money off of it."

00:38:24.620 | Is it expression?

00:38:26.460 | Like, "I just want to write online and share my thoughts,

00:38:28.260 | but I want to be able to have an audience

00:38:30.660 | of people who are listening to it."

00:38:31.740 | Is it people-- - I would assume

00:38:32.580 | it's more related to the first topic

00:38:34.580 | that you just brought up.

00:38:35.420 | - So, okay, so this is,

00:38:36.660 | because they're not talking about,

00:38:37.620 | "We're going to help you make money,"

00:38:39.020 | but you think this is like content marketing.

00:38:41.260 | - Although I would say more copywriting

00:38:43.100 | if it was the first topic that you talked about.

00:38:45.860 | - So I have, so, okay, that's the first problem, CK.

00:38:48.020 | And I think this is the issue.

00:38:48.940 | I mean, I'm not plugged into internet culture,

00:38:50.460 | but I don't understand what this course

00:38:51.860 | is trying to offer you, which tells me,

00:38:53.740 | "I'm not quite sure what it is you're trying to go for

00:38:56.500 | when you say you want to be a writer

00:39:02.140 | and should social media be involved

00:39:04.140 | in you becoming a writer."

00:39:07.220 | - I think what he's talking about,

00:39:08.460 | or she, I'm not sure who CK is,

00:39:10.460 | but they want to do it as a profession, get paid.

00:39:14.340 | - Right, so here's my thoughts then.

00:39:17.500 | We have three, I'm going to give

00:39:19.180 | three possible interpretations of, including this one.

00:39:21.980 | This one, I think is the right one.

00:39:23.380 | But let me give two other interpretations first,

00:39:25.020 | and then we'll go to the third interpretation.

00:39:26.340 | For each of these interpretations

00:39:27.540 | of what this audience member

00:39:29.860 | might be wanting to do with writing,

00:39:32.340 | I'm going to have a quick thought.

00:39:33.780 | So one, if you want to write for fun,

00:39:36.300 | like you want to express yourself,

00:39:37.460 | and also as like a community building thing,

00:39:39.100 | you want to be around other people who write

00:39:41.220 | on the same topic, you're doing fantasy novels,

00:39:43.540 | and you love fantasy novels,

00:39:44.580 | you want to be around other people

00:39:45.420 | who are trying to write fantasy novels,

00:39:46.500 | and you like those people and you like writing,

00:39:49.580 | then I think a writing group is great.

00:39:52.100 | I would recommend an in-person writing group,

00:39:54.820 | of which many exist, or an online writing group,

00:39:57.900 | where it's just, here's 15 people working on this

00:39:59.980 | and we all get together on Zoom.

00:40:01.220 | But it should be a group of people that you know,

00:40:03.820 | you get to know, and you meet with regularly

00:40:05.300 | to work on your writing.

00:40:06.140 | That is a well-established path in the world of writing.

00:40:11.020 | And a lot of people who write for fun do this.

00:40:14.020 | And it's like, we get together

00:40:14.980 | and we pass around manuscripts,

00:40:16.180 | and you should definitely do that, CK.

00:40:17.300 | So if you want to write for fun,

00:40:18.660 | get a real writing group

00:40:20.300 | that you can sustainably work with.

00:40:22.620 | I don't think social media has any role in that.

00:40:25.100 | But social media is not really relevant.

00:40:27.340 | You're not trying to become Brandon Sanderson.

00:40:30.180 | You're not worried about audience building.

00:40:31.420 | So just get together with people and write.

00:40:33.140 | I think that's fantastic.

00:40:35.180 | The second interpretation is

00:40:36.220 | you want to be a professional writer.

00:40:38.660 | Maybe like a professional journalist

00:40:40.100 | or a professional novelist.

00:40:41.860 | All right, well, there's well-worn paths.

00:40:43.940 | I mean, you can't make up your own path there.

00:40:46.620 | If you want to be a professional writer,

00:40:48.220 | you need to study how professional writers get there,

00:40:51.020 | what skills they build, how they build them.

00:40:53.740 | Professional writers don't get there

00:40:55.380 | by kind of copywriting on the internet

00:40:58.060 | and spreading their name with social media.

00:41:00.460 | That's completely different.

00:41:02.620 | So if you want to be a journalist,

00:41:03.540 | if you want to be a professional writer,

00:41:04.860 | I've talked about that, I've written about that.

00:41:06.220 | A hundred other people written about it.

00:41:07.940 | You know, face the reality of how those worlds actually work

00:41:11.460 | and then figure out if there's a reasonable entrance

00:41:13.940 | for you into those worlds.

00:41:15.220 | There's a lot of different answers to that question.

00:41:17.900 | None of those answers are going to be,

00:41:20.500 | you know, start a blog and promote it with Twitter.

00:41:23.580 | All right, the third thing, this is Jesse's interpretation,

00:41:26.500 | is that you want to make money online

00:41:28.100 | as a content marketer or producer of content online.

00:41:33.780 | That's its own thing.

00:41:35.540 | That's its own world.

00:41:37.660 | You know, typically, I don't know that world well,

00:41:42.060 | but I know it somewhat well.

00:41:44.220 | And I mean, typically the key to that world

00:41:46.260 | is you have to have a really clear thing

00:41:49.340 | that you're offering that's interesting to people

00:41:51.580 | or solves a problem they have,

00:41:53.020 | that you are the right person to be writing about it.

00:41:55.660 | So you have some sort of bold demonstration

00:41:59.420 | of this makes me the right person to write about it.

00:42:02.500 | And then you deliver that message

00:42:05.300 | in a very sort of compelling, easily graspable way.

00:42:08.860 | I would say, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, Jesse,

00:42:10.500 | that tends to be now more days, much more visual.

00:42:13.140 | So like if you're trying to,

00:42:14.980 | like let's say you're in like weightlifting,

00:42:19.380 | you're like the plates, what's the guy,

00:42:22.020 | more plates, more dates.

00:42:23.340 | - I don't know that guy's name,

00:42:26.860 | but I know what you're talking about.

00:42:27.700 | - Yeah, anyway, he's like a fitness influencer

00:42:29.780 | or something, right?

00:42:30.620 | It's bodybuilding or weightlifting or whatever, yeah.

00:42:33.300 | No, it's more visual.

00:42:35.060 | So things are more like video or Instagram.

00:42:38.180 | I'm assuming this guy's like very strong.

00:42:41.500 | So there's like some bold demonstration

00:42:42.980 | like why I'm the right person to talk about this.

00:42:44.860 | I don't think there's as much anymore

00:42:46.980 | people starting native with just blogs.

00:42:49.020 | I mean, I see that out there, people just trying to,

00:42:52.020 | you can tell they took some sort of content marketing course

00:42:54.220 | because they have some schedule

00:42:55.060 | with which they're posting these blog posts,

00:42:56.860 | but it really feels like it's pulling teeth.

00:42:58.940 | It's just like, I gotta write my Thursday post

00:43:00.620 | and it's, you know, there's like, what am I,

00:43:02.140 | why am I here for?

00:43:03.140 | Like, who are you, what are you offering?

00:43:04.780 | What's the unique take?

00:43:05.620 | So I think a lot of this content marketing

00:43:07.700 | or influencer type side hustles tends to be more visual.

00:43:11.180 | It's gonna be more video.

00:43:12.020 | It's gonna be more Instagram image type based.

00:43:15.940 | But the key there is the emphasis is not,

00:43:18.060 | I need a lot of feedback on my writing.

00:43:19.540 | Well, what you need there is a particular hook.

00:43:22.380 | I am talking about this thing.

00:43:23.860 | I have a message, a theory, a community,

00:43:26.500 | and my life is a compelling demonstration

00:43:29.260 | of this in action.

00:43:31.020 | And so it's almost like if that's your goal

00:43:33.140 | is to make money online by the production of content,

00:43:36.060 | I would put most of my energy right now

00:43:37.980 | into doing something really interesting

00:43:39.780 | and easily demonstrable online activity.

00:43:42.860 | That's where I'd put my energy.

00:43:44.620 | I'd be, you know, going on the adventure

00:43:48.020 | of writing across the country while doing whatever.

00:43:51.180 | I'd be getting in really good shape

00:43:52.620 | or learning to shoot the bow

00:43:53.860 | or learning the three languages in three months

00:43:56.260 | or whatever it is, right?

00:43:57.220 | Like actually work on developing yourself

00:44:00.060 | as an exemplar of some sort of really interesting thing.

00:44:02.620 | That's probably where you should put your energy.

00:44:04.740 | And then you can figure out how do I deliver this

00:44:06.660 | to people in a compelling fashion?

00:44:07.780 | That's probably what's gonna matter.

00:44:09.180 | But basically none of these interpretations

00:44:11.040 | we're talking about really say what you need to be doing

00:44:15.260 | is like sharing your writing on social media,

00:44:16.940 | at least as step one.

00:44:18.120 | So I don't know.

00:44:20.300 | People sometimes say I'm snobbish about this, Jesse,

00:44:22.060 | just because like I've been writing for a long time

00:44:24.820 | and I write for, you know,

00:44:27.780 | I write books for the biggest publisher in the world.

00:44:29.720 | I write magazine articles for the New Yorker

00:44:32.020 | that I'm out of touch with what it's like to be coming up.

00:44:36.300 | So it's possible I'm being a little bit snobbish about it,

00:44:38.300 | but like I'm not turning my nose at like influence

00:44:41.780 | or culture.

00:44:42.620 | I think that could be a powerful side hustle.

00:44:45.540 | It's just, I don't think you get there

00:44:46.820 | by getting feedback on your blog, right?

00:44:49.540 | I think you get there by, you know,

00:44:53.140 | carrying the rock while you run,

00:44:54.540 | thinking of Cameron Haynes, right?

00:44:58.660 | Is that his name?

00:44:59.500 | - Yeah. - The bow hunter.

00:45:00.820 | And doing these like incredible feats of endurance

00:45:02.780 | and strength that also videotape very well.

00:45:05.880 | And you can show him hitting a target from far away,

00:45:09.300 | carrying a rock up a hill and like Joe Rogan

00:45:12.260 | saw him do that and was like, you have to come on my show.

00:45:14.140 | It's like doing,

00:45:15.320 | that's my understanding of influence or culture.

00:45:17.060 | Now, I mean, I don't understand that there's the whole,

00:45:18.780 | obviously like TikTok influence, which I don't understand.

00:45:22.300 | That's more about like how you literally look

00:45:23.780 | or something, I don't know.

00:45:24.980 | But they're like YouTube, you know, Twitter based.

00:45:28.020 | And now I can sell a lot of books or courses.

00:45:30.820 | Like you gotta be doing something cool.

00:45:32.260 | - Yeah.

00:45:33.100 | - So it's like, focus on doing something cool.

00:45:34.340 | Hey, the side effect is you'll still have ended up

00:45:37.500 | doing something cool regardless of what happens with.

00:45:40.060 | - Yeah.

00:45:41.580 | - That's almost like writing is not that important

00:45:43.740 | for that sort of making money,

00:45:45.740 | producing content for the internet.

00:45:47.380 | Writing is not as important as it maybe once was.

00:45:50.980 | - No matter what, I mean, those great videos and stuff,

00:45:52.900 | they definitely write the scripts, you know.

00:45:55.340 | - Oh yeah, they spend a lot of time on them.

00:45:57.500 | - Yeah, scripts have to be like.

00:45:59.220 | - But it's a different, it's different.

00:46:02.180 | - Yeah.

00:46:03.020 | - Like the YouTube idiom, like it's different

00:46:04.020 | than I'm trying to write like a 2000 word

00:46:06.540 | argumentative essay.

00:46:07.700 | - Yeah.

00:46:08.520 | - And then they edit them so heavily.

00:46:09.500 | If they write the scripts, when they edit, edit, edit,

00:46:11.220 | edit until it's like, so you don't, for example,

00:46:13.740 | have to have a very carefully crafted script

00:46:16.780 | because you're gonna edit out 80% of it.

00:46:20.060 | And there's a whole art in that,

00:46:21.060 | but I think that's an art in just you do it, you practice.

00:46:23.620 | - Yeah.

00:46:24.460 | - All right, let's move on.

00:46:27.580 | What's our next question?

00:46:28.900 | - All right, next question is from Flavio.

00:46:31.420 | I organize filmmaking workshops and produce my own films.

00:46:36.060 | I am developing a new website to sell my own content

00:46:39.060 | directly to my audience.

00:46:40.260 | It will include a blog, newsletter, and podcast.

00:46:43.780 | Should I use social media to help build an audience

00:46:47.700 | or just post on my site and let the audience

00:46:49.900 | grow organically?

00:46:51.100 | - All right, that's good.

00:46:52.820 | It's a related question.

00:46:53.740 | So we're pairing two questions that are somewhat related.

00:46:56.380 | All right, so let's, in Flavio or Flavio's case,

00:47:00.700 | he has like an existing project

00:47:03.500 | that he wants to better promote.

00:47:06.020 | I think it is possible to use social media

00:47:10.860 | to promote a relevant project without massive net harms.

00:47:16.860 | But it's difficult.

00:47:17.900 | So I have some advice about if you wanna try to do that,

00:47:21.780 | how to do it.

00:47:22.620 | First, I'm gonna say treat your social media channels

00:47:28.980 | like almost a television channel.

00:47:31.300 | I have a very specific programming

00:47:35.580 | that I have thought through.

00:47:37.580 | Here's the content and the look

00:47:39.100 | and the schedule of this programming.

00:47:41.220 | Let's see how this season does.

00:47:42.900 | Like you're thinking about it

00:47:43.740 | almost like a television programmer.

00:47:45.900 | So in this case, Flavio's in filmmaking,

00:47:49.100 | does filmmaking courses, produces his own film.

00:47:51.300 | So maybe like when he's thinking about Instagram,

00:47:54.300 | it is these like beautifully shot short videos

00:47:58.140 | all on the same topic.

00:48:00.260 | You can imagine it's like all on cinematography

00:48:03.300 | and you have like a demonstration

00:48:05.460 | each one of these short videos.

00:48:06.700 | And it's like, here's what we do.

00:48:08.740 | It's one of these every two weeks

00:48:10.500 | and here's how it looks.

00:48:11.460 | And we post it here.

00:48:12.500 | And we post it here and on YouTube.

00:48:14.740 | And it's like you're programming a television channel.

00:48:17.500 | Then stick to that schedule,

00:48:21.860 | use a computer to publish,

00:48:23.140 | have no interaction with your channel.

00:48:26.180 | You're not on there listening to DMs

00:48:27.700 | and answering responses.

00:48:29.020 | It's like the executive at the Discovery Channel

00:48:33.340 | is they're putting the content out there

00:48:34.860 | and for an audience to consume.

00:48:36.980 | I think that's the only sustainable way to do it.

00:48:39.780 | So you have this clarity of here's what we're doing

00:48:41.980 | and why and what it looks like and it's regular.

00:48:43.980 | The audience can build expectations for this

00:48:46.620 | and you're not on there interacting.

00:48:49.100 | There is whole different levels of difficulty

00:48:52.100 | that this can span.

00:48:55.460 | From the very simplest,

00:48:56.540 | you can have a strategy, a channel strategy

00:48:58.340 | like Ryan Holiday, where it's a quote once a day.

00:49:02.700 | Stoic quote once a day, he has a big list of them.

00:49:05.100 | Someone puts them on there.

00:49:06.540 | Very simple content, but very clear

00:49:09.220 | what he's trying to do.

00:49:10.340 | On the other end of the scale of difficulty,

00:49:12.260 | you could have something like Adam Savage's Tested.com

00:49:17.220 | where they do treat it like a television channel,

00:49:19.100 | but there's a series of different types

00:49:20.740 | of videos they produce.

00:49:21.820 | They're actually pretty high

00:49:23.540 | man hour production requirements,

00:49:25.900 | but you really know there's these Q&As,

00:49:28.340 | one day builds and experiences.

00:49:31.460 | And they're sort of released on a semi-regular schedule

00:49:33.540 | with a common look.

00:49:34.420 | And so you can have whole sorts of degrees

00:49:36.260 | of difficulty here, but the key is you're seeing it

00:49:38.420 | like I'm using these as channels.

00:49:40.660 | I'm putting this on Instagram,

00:49:42.820 | much in the same way that Discovery Channel might say,

00:49:44.820 | ooh, Comcast is gonna carry our channel now.

00:49:47.020 | What you want to avoid if you're gonna try this strategy

00:49:51.420 | is the Faustian bargain of I can build an audience.

00:49:56.420 | Like I can see the number tick up faster

00:50:00.060 | on one of these social media platforms.

00:50:02.180 | If I become a sort of Greek chorus commenter

00:50:06.260 | on the affairs of the world.

00:50:08.340 | That I am going to just react to things that are going on,

00:50:11.140 | that are relevant to my particular world.

00:50:13.060 | I'm gonna comment on things.

00:50:14.260 | I'm gonna go back and forth with people,

00:50:16.260 | make takes, see what gets picked up by other people

00:50:18.940 | and what doesn't.

00:50:19.780 | That's the fastest way to grow a say a Twitter following

00:50:24.540 | or Instagram following, but it is a Faustian bargain

00:50:27.540 | because what that will require.

00:50:28.820 | So if this is what you do,

00:50:29.740 | yes, your numbers will go up quicker,

00:50:30.940 | but what that requires is 10 to 30 typically posts a day.

00:50:34.540 | So you're doing it constantly

00:50:36.220 | and that sucks you into that world.

00:50:38.180 | And your entire world becomes this online world

00:50:40.500 | and it's anxiety producing and it's stressful

00:50:43.300 | and it saps your energy.

00:50:44.660 | It's incredibly distracting

00:50:46.020 | and it reduces your ability to do almost anything else.

00:50:48.900 | I also think those type of audiences

00:50:50.940 | don't translate into sales of the other things you're doing

00:50:53.940 | at nearly the same conversion rate

00:50:55.820 | as another type of audience.

00:50:57.420 | If you've built up an audience

00:50:58.700 | because you post the cinematography video,

00:51:01.580 | every two weeks and it's beautifully done and informative,

00:51:04.420 | that is an audience that's gonna convert at a high rate

00:51:06.580 | when you sell an online course about filmmaking.

00:51:08.740 | If you have a, instead a big audience

00:51:10.540 | that's three times as big, but it's been built up

00:51:12.460 | because you're on there talking

00:51:13.740 | about the film industry all day long

00:51:15.300 | and getting involved in controversies

00:51:16.860 | and doing takes and sniping at people,

00:51:18.860 | that's not an audience that's gonna convert

00:51:20.500 | very high to your filmmaking course.

00:51:21.820 | So yeah, maybe you have a hundred thousand followers

00:51:23.700 | instead of 30,000, but you get less conversion

00:51:27.340 | to your online course that in the vision

00:51:28.740 | where you have this program channel mentality.

00:51:32.020 | So that's what I'm gonna suggest.

00:51:32.940 | If you were going to do a social media promotion strategy,

00:51:36.420 | treat it like a TV channel,

00:51:37.820 | program, schedule, specific content,

00:51:41.860 | theory behind it, thought behind it,

00:51:43.900 | execute, execute, execute.

00:51:45.340 | Don't get involved in interactions.

00:51:47.260 | Don't talk to people.

00:51:49.060 | Don't try to build an audience

00:51:50.100 | because people are interested in your takes.

00:51:52.100 | That is a bet that I don't think is worth taking.

00:51:55.000 | I've been, speaking of cinematography,

00:52:00.620 | I was re-watching "The Revenant" recently,

00:52:05.500 | which won, just 2015, won the Oscar for best cinematography.

00:52:10.500 | It's like a miracle of cinematography.

00:52:12.780 | - Is that with Anthony Hopkins?

00:52:14.180 | - No, you're thinking of similar.

00:52:17.980 | That is a movie, there is an Anthony Hopkins movie

00:52:19.980 | where he's being chased by a bear.

00:52:21.220 | - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:52:22.420 | "The Revenant," he gets attacked by a bear

00:52:25.500 | and they leave him for dead.

00:52:27.740 | But when he's essentially like completely immobilized

00:52:32.180 | from his injuries, he sees Tom Hardy kill his son.

00:52:37.140 | And then Tom Hardy leaves him for dead.

00:52:38.700 | And then he sort of emerges

00:52:40.100 | and the whole thing is him tracking him down.

00:52:42.080 | But it's a miracle of cinematography

00:52:43.780 | because it's all natural light.

00:52:46.940 | And it's all filmed, almost entirely filmed,

00:52:50.540 | except for some of the flashback sequences

00:52:52.040 | and broom sequences with wide angle primate lenses.

00:52:55.660 | - Okay, yeah, I've seen this.

00:52:56.500 | - So no like telephoto, no like zoomed in,

00:53:01.060 | the only establishing shots are of nature for the most part.

00:53:03.900 | And there's like some, I think they did the initial attack

00:53:07.740 | at the riverboat in deep focus, so that's different.

00:53:10.740 | But once they're out there, it's a prime wide angle lens,

00:53:14.320 | usually below eye level and is just in there,

00:53:17.960 | just like up to the person's face and turn to camera

00:53:20.300 | as they're looking up here.

00:53:21.300 | And so you're just like in this, you're in the world.

00:53:25.300 | And you can see so much detail

00:53:26.460 | because you're on the wide angle lens, right?

00:53:27.800 | So it's this huge,

00:53:29.340 | they're using a good digital Aeroflex camera.

00:53:30.900 | So it's good resolution still.

00:53:32.340 | And you're seeing, so it's like you're there.

00:53:34.180 | Like you're just natural light,

00:53:35.340 | like right among the people, right among the crowd.

00:53:37.580 | It's a, you know, anyways, I'm impressed.

00:53:40.900 | - Nice.

00:53:41.740 | - That one best, and then the director won best director.

00:53:44.580 | And it was the year after he did Birdman.

00:53:47.180 | - Oh yeah.

00:53:48.020 | - And got best director for that back.

00:53:48.860 | I mean, that's a flex.

00:53:50.380 | Birdman, Revenant, you know, you flex, you drop the mic

00:53:52.860 | and then, you know, go do what you wanna do.

00:53:54.860 | So anyways, I've been enjoying that.

00:53:56.900 | I'm very impressed.

00:53:58.780 | - That is a diversion.

00:54:00.740 | I like diverting into the cinema when I can.

00:54:05.660 | All right, let's, people are probably tired

00:54:07.900 | from the holidays, but let's do one more question here.

00:54:09.860 | - Okay.

00:54:10.700 | CT, how do I address my growing desire to make new friends

00:54:15.820 | and build a network outside my hometown connections

00:54:18.260 | when I'm already balancing a job

00:54:19.940 | and a side project of writing a novel?

00:54:22.500 | - Well, okay, first of all, I'm not impressed.

00:54:26.220 | I mean, I'm impressed that you're writing a novel.

00:54:27.740 | I'm not impressed by the idea that this somehow

00:54:30.100 | is a unique obstacle to making friends.

00:54:32.940 | Lots of people have lots of things going on outside of work

00:54:34.940 | and still have friends, but it is hard to make new friends.

00:54:37.460 | Jesse, I'm gonna ask you.

00:54:38.700 | You're like the most friendly person I know.

00:54:42.260 | You make friends with people just walking down the street.

00:54:45.620 | So let's pick your brain on this.

00:54:47.700 | Like, what is Jesse's tips for like finding

00:54:51.980 | and meeting people, interesting people?

00:54:54.220 | You just sort of live in a city.

00:54:58.060 | What do you do?

00:54:58.900 | - One thing that you can do is, you know,

00:55:01.860 | you can meet a lot of community people at gyms

00:55:04.060 | or classes or stuff like that.

00:55:05.980 | - Like activities.

00:55:06.820 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:55:07.980 | Especially like group classes.

00:55:09.500 | If you consistently go to some of those

00:55:11.060 | and you meet a lot of regular people that do the same thing

00:55:14.380 | around the same times that you go.

00:55:15.780 | - So like when you started, how long ago did you start

00:55:17.940 | the new CrossFit box you've been going to?

00:55:20.420 | - I started that gym in May.

00:55:25.860 | - So have you met anybody?

00:55:27.220 | - Yeah, I know a lot of people there.

00:55:28.540 | - Not surprised.

00:55:29.380 | - Yeah, like a lot.

00:55:30.620 | And then.

00:55:31.460 | - And like an interesting thing you do,

00:55:32.660 | which I think people don't always think of,

00:55:36.060 | but they should, is like you actually invest

00:55:38.660 | in a country club membership.

00:55:41.180 | - Yeah.

00:55:42.540 | - Which is not as bad as you might think.

00:55:43.860 | You worked me through the numbers at some point.

00:55:46.300 | But it's like there is multiple different

00:55:49.340 | social possibilities that all,

00:55:51.300 | because there's all these different,

00:55:52.420 | there's different sports going on and tournaments

00:55:55.220 | and I met one of your friends, Leo, right?

00:55:59.420 | Yeah, who you met at the club.

00:56:03.100 | And the way you explained that to me,

00:56:03.940 | it's like that's actually like a really good investment.

00:56:06.540 | It's not far from your house.

00:56:08.100 | You can go to tennis, you work on golf,

00:56:10.140 | or you're gonna play golf,

00:56:10.980 | then you get people to play golf.

00:56:12.980 | These are all sports you end up playing with.

00:56:15.140 | You meet other people who are doing them.

00:56:17.100 | I think that was a really smart move

00:56:19.300 | that like someone like CT,

00:56:21.540 | you wouldn't normally think about it

00:56:22.540 | 'cause people think like, well, that's,

00:56:24.940 | it's for lawyers to network or something.

00:56:26.900 | Or like it feels like something that like,

00:56:29.340 | your parents in the 80s did or something.

00:56:31.540 | But it's actually very savvy.

00:56:32.900 | Like there's a lot of activity,

00:56:34.420 | a huge return on that investment in terms of socialization,

00:56:38.860 | socializing, meeting people.

00:56:40.300 | - Yeah.

00:56:41.540 | Meet a lot of people at those types of gyms

00:56:44.660 | and even classes, like say you took Spanish classes

00:56:47.620 | like the local community college or something like that.

00:56:49.700 | - Yeah.

00:56:50.540 | - You can meet people like that.

00:56:52.500 | - Before we had kids,

00:56:53.340 | my wife and I did some photography classes.

00:56:55.780 | - Yeah.

00:56:56.740 | - And some cooking classes.

00:56:58.420 | Through the community,

00:56:59.260 | I think it was the community college.

00:57:00.780 | It was something like that.

00:57:01.620 | Or was that the, maybe some of this was at like

00:57:02.820 | the Brattle Theater in Cambridge.

00:57:04.460 | But yeah, we'd met people.

00:57:07.340 | - Yeah.

00:57:08.180 | - Like, oh great, then let's like go

00:57:10.180 | to a photo exhibit together or something like that.

00:57:11.740 | - Yeah.

00:57:12.740 | And then especially in DC, I mean,

00:57:14.140 | go to a bunch of those, you know,

00:57:17.140 | go downtown, go to museums, go to like tours,

00:57:19.620 | go to stuff like that.

00:57:22.100 | - Yeah, sign up for these things.

00:57:23.460 | - Yeah.

00:57:24.300 | - Yeah, there's a lot of lectures.

00:57:25.260 | There's a lot of, yeah, a lot of shows.

00:57:28.380 | - The more of those you go to,

00:57:29.300 | you probably recognize some familiar faces.

00:57:31.580 | - So CT, I think the idea here is

00:57:33.620 | invest a lot of energy into this.

00:57:36.900 | I think it's worth,

00:57:37.740 | and it doesn't take,

00:57:38.700 | a lot of this is happening after hours,

00:57:40.260 | it's on weekends,

00:57:41.100 | and it's not like it's every day.

00:57:42.660 | But it takes energy.

00:57:44.700 | You have to sign up for things and go places.

00:57:46.260 | And then once you meet people, ask them to do things.

00:57:47.820 | Like there's a lot of energy in it,

00:57:48.820 | but it's absolutely worth doing.

00:57:50.700 | Because not only is it important to make new friends,

00:57:52.220 | but actually I think the whole process of trying to do this

00:57:54.860 | is itself really interesting activity.

00:57:57.220 | Like you're not gonna be upset

00:57:58.180 | that like I've been going to a gym

00:57:59.420 | and I went to these lectures

00:58:00.540 | and I experimented with like photography

00:58:02.340 | and I had coffee with two or three different people.

00:58:04.380 | And maybe I didn't really like those people,

00:58:05.460 | but that was interesting.

00:58:06.300 | I went to a new place.

00:58:07.140 | Like it's activity and it's interesting

00:58:09.420 | and it's stimulating and it's new.

00:58:11.420 | And so even the act of getting out there

00:58:15.500 | and trying to meet friends itself,

00:58:18.740 | it's interesting even before you actually like sift through

00:58:21.340 | and find the right friends.

00:58:23.180 | - You could volunteer.

00:58:24.220 | - Volunteer.

00:58:25.340 | Yeah, I've always thought about that.

00:58:27.980 | There's a trail around here.

00:58:28.900 | I used to hike more and it was closer to our old house.

00:58:31.140 | And there was a group that maintained the trail.

00:58:33.180 | I was like, that'd be cool.

00:58:34.220 | - Yeah.

00:58:35.060 | - Like you would really get to know that trail well

00:58:37.020 | and like trail maintenance and get to spend time outside.

00:58:40.900 | So go for it CT.

00:58:42.380 | I think Jesse and I both agree.

00:58:44.140 | Sign up for lots of things, do lots of things.

00:58:48.580 | All right, well, the final segment I wanna get to

00:58:50.860 | in today's show is the three interesting things.

00:58:53.300 | Before we get there, let me briefly mention

00:58:56.700 | another one of the sponsors that makes this show possible.

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00:59:36.260 | I have been doing this pitch to people IRL.

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01:02:50.140 | All right, we're up to the last segment of our show.

01:02:55.340 | That's three interesting things.

01:02:56.500 | That's where I take three interesting things

01:02:59.060 | that readers have sent me

01:03:01.980 | to my interesting@calnewport.com email address

01:03:04.780 | from the world of the news and internet and media

01:03:07.820 | that are relevant to our goal of living a deep life.

01:03:10.760 | If you are watching on the YouTube channel,

01:03:14.420 | youtube.com/calnewportmedia,

01:03:16.020 | you will see everything I'm talking about.

01:03:17.620 | If you're just listening, I'll narrate what's going on here.

01:03:21.060 | But in the three interesting things segment, I have visuals.

01:03:24.080 | All right, the first interesting thing to talk about

01:03:27.040 | is an article by an up and coming brilliant young writer.

01:03:30.060 | The article is called "On Teenage Luddites,"

01:03:32.740 | and it was published by me

01:03:34.220 | on my newsletter at calnewport.com.

01:03:37.780 | on December 16th.

01:03:39.920 | So this article, I just wanted to briefly mention it

01:03:44.020 | 'cause it's reacting to a New York Times piece

01:03:47.940 | that essentially everybody sent me.

01:03:50.040 | So the New York Times published this piece,

01:03:52.900 | and I have its exact title in here.

01:03:54.540 | Let me scroll here and find it.

01:03:56.240 | So the exact title of this New York Times piece was

01:04:00.260 | "Luddite Teens Don't Want Your Likes."

01:04:03.780 | And it was written by Alex Vadikul.

01:04:07.880 | Who hung out with the Luddite Club,

01:04:10.720 | a group of Brooklyn high school students

01:04:12.440 | who have an informal organization dedicated

01:04:14.840 | to promoting a lifestyle of self-liberation

01:04:18.520 | from social media technology.

01:04:19.400 | I have a typo, look at this, "literation."

01:04:21.960 | No one has pointed out that typo to me yet,

01:04:23.880 | so no one's really reading.

01:04:25.240 | So the article, this New York Times article opens

01:04:29.320 | on a meeting of the club.

01:04:30.240 | It's being held on a dirt mound in Prospect Park.

01:04:33.460 | Some of the members are drawing in sketch pads

01:04:35.680 | or watercoloring, they're reading books.

01:04:38.320 | One of the teenagers was reading Bothius's

01:04:40.280 | "The Constellation of Philosophy,"

01:04:41.780 | which is both impressive and hilarious.

01:04:44.400 | Someone else, and this is true, was whittling a stick.

01:04:48.640 | And it's a group of teenagers,

01:04:49.920 | they're like, "We don't wanna be on our phones all day."

01:04:52.480 | The article goes on to talk to the founder of the group,

01:04:55.440 | a 17-year-old named Logan Lane, who said,

01:04:57.960 | "Although it was hard to recruit members,

01:05:00.320 | "word is now spreading."

01:05:02.500 | They've heard of at least three different chapters

01:05:04.160 | that might be forming at other New York area high schools.

01:05:07.840 | So my point in this article, so my article

01:05:09.920 | on teenage Luddites was responding

01:05:11.420 | to this New York Times article.

01:05:12.640 | And essentially I was saying, "I told you so."

01:05:16.160 | In particular, I cited in my article how back in 2019,

01:05:21.160 | when I was on tour for Digital Minimalism,

01:05:23.900 | I started to come across parents who were telling me stories

01:05:27.800 | about their teenagers quitting social media,

01:05:30.640 | and in some cases, handing in their smartphones

01:05:33.160 | for dumber phones, as an act of authentic self-liberation.

01:05:38.160 | That it was a counter-cultural move to not use those tools.

01:05:42.680 | So they weren't slinking away from this

01:05:44.600 | and hoping they didn't lose all their friends.

01:05:46.040 | These were tales of teenagers who were trying

01:05:48.120 | to impress each other by saying,

01:05:49.440 | "Look, I don't use those things.

01:05:51.600 | "They can't tell me what to do."

01:05:53.720 | And I have been arguing ever since then,

01:05:55.600 | when I'm in interviews and people ask me

01:05:57.120 | with a solemn face, "Well, what about teens?

01:05:59.680 | "Teens in technology?

01:06:02.120 | "They're a goner."

01:06:03.680 | I say, "I'm more optimistic."

01:06:05.280 | Because of those stories I heard from parents

01:06:07.720 | back when I was promoting Digital Minimalism,

01:06:10.220 | I was convinced that this will emerge.

01:06:12.840 | Leaving social media, leaving the attention economy

01:06:15.920 | will emerge as a counter-culture.

01:06:19.080 | Something that is cool or authentic among teenagers.

01:06:21.920 | And using these services will be seen

01:06:23.760 | as what's more old-fashioned.

01:06:26.740 | So I think teenagers were going to liberate themselves

01:06:30.240 | from these technologies.

01:06:31.200 | But here was my quote,

01:06:32.800 | "We don't need to convince teenagers

01:06:34.140 | "to stop using their phones.

01:06:35.640 | "We just need them to discover on their own

01:06:37.420 | "just how uncool these online media conglomerates

01:06:39.620 | "with their creepy geek overlords really are."

01:06:42.100 | I think what's really helped accelerate that

01:06:45.080 | has been the dethroning of the CEOs of these tech companies

01:06:49.360 | from being geek heroes to being,

01:06:52.360 | at least in the perspective of a lot of mainstream media,

01:06:55.800 | Bond villains.

01:06:57.620 | So what could be less cool if you're a 17-year-old

01:07:01.080 | in Brooklyn than trying to support Mark Zuckerberg

01:07:05.040 | or trying to support Elon Musk?

01:07:06.760 | So I think this de-romanticization is already happening.

01:07:10.000 | So this article in the New York Times,

01:07:12.480 | I found and presented as a signal that my prediction

01:07:17.480 | of this counter-cultural movement

01:07:19.120 | is beginning to pick up speed.

01:07:21.760 | That we're going to see more and more of this going forward.

01:07:24.440 | And the reason why I'm more confident about this

01:07:26.960 | than I ever have been before

01:07:29.320 | is the following quote from Logan Lane,

01:07:31.360 | the founder of the Brooklyn-based Luddite Club.

01:07:33.160 | Lane said in that New York Times article,

01:07:35.560 | "My parents are so addicted.

01:07:37.520 | "My mom got on Twitter and I've seen it tear her apart.

01:07:40.560 | "I guess I like being offline

01:07:42.020 | "because I get to feel a little superior to them."

01:07:44.600 | Zuckerberg is screwed, Musk is screwed,

01:07:48.880 | ByteDance, the maker of TikTok is screwed.

01:07:51.380 | If kids start seeing, hey, this is something my parents do

01:07:55.040 | and I get to feel superior to them by not being on my phone,

01:07:58.800 | they will walk over hot coals to do that.

01:08:01.400 | So I found that all to be quite positive.

01:08:03.440 | All right, interesting thing, number two,

01:08:07.800 | it's a quote sent to me in an email.

01:08:09.960 | So I have the whole email here.

01:08:12.160 | This was from Carl, I blacked out his actual email address,

01:08:17.000 | but I thought this was cool.

01:08:18.440 | He said, "Look, I just read this quote

01:08:20.680 | "by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius

01:08:22.600 | "in his book, The Meditations.

01:08:25.340 | "It made," and I'm jumping over some things here.

01:08:27.520 | "It made me think, hey, wait a second,

01:08:29.400 | "he's talking about deep work."

01:08:32.400 | So here's the Marcus Aurelius quote.

01:08:34.140 | This is from book two of The Meditations, section five.

01:08:37.640 | "Firmly as a Roman and a man should,

01:08:39.880 | "think at all times how you can perform the task at hand

01:08:42.620 | "with precise and genuine dignity,

01:08:45.000 | "sympathy, independence, and justice,

01:08:46.880 | "making yourself free from all other preoccupations."

01:08:51.120 | Well said Marcus Aurelius.

01:08:54.960 | One might assume he would not be a big fan of TikTok.

01:08:59.260 | So I like that, "Make yourself free of all preoccupations

01:09:03.100 | "so you can perform the task at hand

01:09:04.820 | "with dignity, sympathy, and independence."

01:09:07.520 | Well said.

01:09:08.340 | All right, third interesting thing.

01:09:10.960 | I thought we'd do a little bit of deep life,

01:09:15.600 | an injection of deep life aspiration

01:09:17.940 | in honor of the holiday season.

01:09:19.200 | We're all at home, taking a week off work.

01:09:22.680 | Let's get our daydreaming muscles fired up here.

01:09:26.360 | So a listener sent me this article.

01:09:29.040 | Oh, look at this picture, Jesse.

01:09:30.280 | All right, so for those who are listening, not watching,

01:09:34.460 | there is a picture of a cabin

01:09:35.960 | surrounded by snow-laden evergreens

01:09:39.600 | with probably like a foot and a half of snow

01:09:41.180 | on the cabin's roof.

01:09:42.320 | And you can see mountains in the background.

01:09:44.920 | This is from Outside Magazine.

01:09:46.820 | Here's the title.

01:09:48.540 | "We left the city for a teeny cabin in a ski town.

01:09:51.940 | "We don't regret a thing."

01:09:54.120 | I don't even have to read this article.

01:09:56.780 | I think we get the gist.

01:09:58.580 | It's a single mom and her daughter,

01:10:00.780 | tired of city life in Densver,

01:10:02.840 | got rid of most of their stuff,

01:10:04.520 | move into a 110-year-old cabin

01:10:06.120 | in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

01:10:08.600 | They ski all the time.

01:10:10.600 | They're kind of in the middle of nowhere.

01:10:12.360 | It's beautiful, and they love it.

01:10:14.040 | So there we go.

01:10:16.880 | It's just a little injection

01:10:18.440 | of deep life aspiration serum straight into your veins.

01:10:23.340 | If this is resonating with you, just ask the question,

01:10:25.540 | what about this is resonating?

01:10:27.380 | That is how you support

01:10:28.580 | your own lifestyle-centric career planning.

01:10:30.580 | You begin to encounter stories like this

01:10:32.620 | that hit you in the right way.

01:10:33.740 | You try to figure out what about it

01:10:35.080 | hits you in the right way.

01:10:35.920 | You isolate that.

01:10:37.220 | You collect these isolated attributes,

01:10:39.220 | which you then put into your lifestyle vision,

01:10:41.140 | and then you get to use those to help shape

01:10:43.580 | or create your own version of what this author

01:10:46.340 | and their 14-year-old daughter did.

01:10:48.440 | So that looks good to me.

01:10:49.740 | All right, everyone, I will let you get back

01:10:53.680 | to your Festivus feats of strength

01:10:56.160 | and airing of grievances.

01:10:57.720 | Hopefully your Festivus pole

01:10:58.760 | has been decorated well this year.

01:11:01.200 | I'll be back next week with another episode of the show.

01:11:05.240 | And until then, as always, stay deep.

01:11:08.580 | (upbeat music)

01:11:12.220 | (upbeat music)

01:11:15.260 | (upbeat music)

01:11:17.840 | (upbeat music)

01:11:20.420 | (upbeat music)

Ep. 228: A World Without Busyness

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